


Meet You Halfway There

by Elenothar



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: AU, Darcy and Tony might be secret BFFs, M/M, Tony just happens to like hunky blond guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-02
Updated: 2012-09-02
Packaged: 2017-11-13 09:27:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/501997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elenothar/pseuds/Elenothar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Thor is cast out of Asgard, Tony is the one to stumble across him in the middle of nowhere, New Mexico. Presented with a mysterious stranger with good looks that should be illegal, a 'crashed satellite', and meddling political science majors, how can Tony resist? Also, Darcy should really shut up about her damn iPod.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meet You Halfway There

**Author's Note:**

> This movie AU only works because I kind of fudged up the Iron Man 2/Thor timeline - for the sake of this fic please just assume that IM2 happened before the whole of Thor.
> 
> (Also, none of the opinions about the state of New Mexico voiced in this fic mirror mine - I've never been there.)
> 
> Inspired by the wonderful artwork by chosenfire28, to be found [here](http://chosenfire28.livejournal.com/265358.html). Go give the art some love!
> 
> Many thanks to [crescent gaia](http://crescent-gaia.livejournal.com/) for betaing.

 

Tony Stark couldn’t believe he was stuck in New Mexico of all places. He hated the damn state. Had hated it ever since he had first set foot in it, as a matter of fact (which had only been a day ago, but that was totally beside the point). To think he could be at home in Malibu, where the weather was warm instead of positively scorching, where there was an ocean right next to his house instead of no water anywhere in at least a three hundred mile radius, where there were nice little beaches instead of a fucking _desert_. If he never saw a desert again in his life he would be happy. Ecstatic even. How dared a state with desert be part of the US? Maybe they should just hand it over to Mexico and let _them_ deal with it, seriously it was already in the name anyway (though then they’d probably have to hand over Texas, too, and no one wanted maniacs with rifles to be pissed with them, so that was a deal breaker right there).

Oh, and had he mentioned that New Mexico was boring as hell, too? No? Yeah, it was.

It had been boring when he’d been flying over it in the suit, and it was boring now that he was sitting in the super-secret SHIELD base in the middle of nowhere. Granted, the astrophysics research Coulson had dragged him down here to look at in the first place _had_ been interesting – for the whole two days it had taken him to ingest everything SHIELD had ever compiled on the subject and understand the concepts. He wasn’t called a genius for nothing, after all, and even though his focus had never been on theories of interdimensional travel, he was reasonably certain that he was going to be able to help Doctor Foster with the technical aspect of trying to build a ‘bridge’ through space.

Unfortunately his first meeting with Doctor Foster wasn’t scheduled till the next morning, which was why he was currently sulking in his room, bored out of his mind ever since Coulson had confiscated his tablet and his phone (tyrant) because he’d already hacked into the base’s servers.  Tony still wasn’t sure why the agent had been so annoyed with him – it wasn’t as if anyone could bring Tony Stark to a secret base and _not_ expect him to have some fun there.

He was about to go and raise some hell – ‘polite request’ that he remain in his room be damned – when Coulson entered, looking as unruffled as ever. Seriously, the man had to have some secret; no one always had such good timing _all the damn time_.

“Mr. Stark, Ms. Potts has called to inform you that the stock has been doing _exceptionally_ well since your departure and you should stay out of trouble for as long as physically possible,” he informed Tony, with his usual blend of blandness.

Tony sighed theatrically. “People never seem to have faith in me, it’s wounding, really it is. And speaking of Pepper, how _did_ you manage to convince her to let you kidnap me to New Mexico? I was supposed to be in lots of boring meetings all week.”

Coulson didn’t smirk, but Tony could hear it in his voice anyway when he said, “Wouldn’t you like to know. Suffice to say, Ms. Potts and I have an understanding.”

Somehow, that wasn’t a surprise in the slightest, what with both of them being freakishly competent and all. Ever since their shared kiss on the roof top, and equally shared decision that that had really been more weird than anything else and they probably worked better as friends anyway (strangely both a relief and a disappointment), Pepper had been running his life with even more single-minded determination than usual. He would complain, but refrained on the grounds that it would be an exceedingly futile exercise.

Tony leaned back into his seat. “Why _am_ I here then, Coulson? This isn’t exactly the project of the century; people have tried to build something like this for _decades_ without success. I may be SHIELD’s consultant, but my time is far too valuable to be dragged to the middle of nowhere for no good reason.”

“Rest assured, Mr. Stark, there _are_ good reasons, and if we had had any choice SHIELD would have refrained from calling you in,” Coulson returned easily. “There have been strange sightings, disturbances lately. Director Fury has given this project high priority.”

Tony snorted. Yeah right. “Bullshit. Fury wouldn’t be doing this because of a few unspecified disturbances. What’s really going on? Or do I need to do my own digging?”

“I’m afraid your security clearance isn’t high enough for anything else, Mr. Stark.”

The agent turned to go. “Would you please refrain from creating any more chaos on our base? I suggest you continue familiarizing yourself with the information SHIELD has provided you.”

“Been there, done that,” Tony drawled. “I’ve already been here more than a day, remember? Plus, genius, hello!”

“I’m sure,” Coulson said – and seriously, if there was a deadpan award, the man would practically annihilate the competition. “Get some rest instead then, Mr. Stark. Your meeting is tomorrow.”

Tony sighed. Rest. What an outdated concept, and certainly not applicable to Tony Stark. He pulled out his phone. “JARVIS, would you download the newest plants vs. zombies?”

***

Darcy was having an exceptionally bad day. First their coffee machine had mysteriously stopped working – she suspected one of Jane’s late night coffee binges – then she and Erik had been talking SCIENCE (complete with capital letters) all morning, leaving her _impossibly_ bored, and now her beloved iPod was missing. It had all her music stored on it, and it had pink stripes, okay? This was a disaster. She’d already turned the whole van and research bunker upside down _twice_ to no avail, and any attempt at asking the two resident nerds had been met with no more success than a distracted ‘hmm’. Darcy sincerely doubted that they’d even consciously taken notice of her question (and even if they had, they probably wouldn’t realize the absolute catastrophe it entailed).

Which is why she was the only one actually paying attention – playing Tetris on one’s phone could only tide you over for so long – when Tony Stark strolled through the door like he owned the place.

He was wearing close fitting jeans and a black t-shirt, and Darcy couldn’t help but mentally wolf-whistle. That was definitely a butt she could appreciate.

“The science brigade is in the back,” she called, but Stark made his way over to her instead.

“Hello, honey” he drawled, grinning at her, “what is someone like you doing sitting around here instead of gracing the outside world?”

Oh, yes, that was a checkmark for charm. She grinned back. “Technically I’m employed here. It would be bad form to run away, don’t you think?”

Now there was definite curiosity in his dark gaze, as he regarded her with an evaluating eye. “You don’t seem like the usual astrophysicist, Miss…?”

“Lewis,” she filled in readily. “But call me Darcy. And I’m not. I’m actually a political science major. I’m just here because Jane bribed me with donuts and now I occasionally point out something really obvious when they start thinking too complicated.”

“Donuts, I approve. A good reason to be doing something,” he smirked. “Call me Tony.”

She shrugged. “I thought so. Oh, and occasionally I make coffee, too, but the machine’s broken now, so you’ll have to do without.”

“Broken you say?” he asked, one perfectly dark eyebrow raised. “Where’s it?”

She pointed over to the open kitchen, and watched interestedly as he immediately started taking the machine apart. His movements were quick and sure, nothing like what she would’ve expected from someone like him.

“Aren’t, you like, uh, a billionaire?” she questioned.

He glanced back at her, amusement clear in the tilt of his lips. “Sure. But I’m an engineer foremost. You won’t find any machine I’m not able to fix with a little time and a few tools.” He turned back to the already partly dismantled coffee machine. “Got a screwdriver?”

“Somewhere, I’m sure,” Darcy answered, and went looking for it.

Unsurprisingly she finally found one in the sciency part of the building, and took the opportunity to tell Jane and Erik that their future working partner had arrived. _That_ apparently was worthy of their attention (and no, Darcy wasn’t miffed at all, after all who can compare to Tony fucking Stark?).

“Where is he then?” Jane asked confused, from behind the miniaturized model of whatever the hell they’d been trying to build for the past few months, always with varying degrees of failure as a result.

“Oh, he’s fixing the coffee machine,” Darcy informed her cheerfully, waving the screwdriver around as confirmation.

Jane and Erik both stared at her.

“The coffee machine’s broken?”

*

Once Darcy had brought him his screwdriver, it didn’t take Tony more than a few minutes to find the faulty wire, replace it, and give them back their coffee machine in wonderful working order.

She spent the next hour quietly marveling at the way Tony was coaxing Jane out of her ‘grumpy-scientist’ shell with a combination of irresistible charm and a scientific knowledge to rival Jane’s own. This was _definitely_ a show to keep an eye on – and maybe take a few notes for future reference – since Jane couldn’t in all seriousness be described as a people-person, or even socially adept at any given day. As Darcy figured it, if Tony Stark managed to both cheer her up and get her to mingle with more people than just her and Erik, he might as well stay forever. Maybe this whole idea hadn’t been so bad, even though she was the first to admit that she’d legitimately thought it would be a disaster when the idea to get Tony Stark to help as a consultant on the project.  Jane was, to put it really mildly, _slightly_ proprietary about her research and had only agreed to work with SHIELD in the first place because a) they needed the money, and b) some stone-faced agent had informed them that it was either that or relinquishing all their research and abandoning the project. It hadn’t taken a genius intellect to guess which one Jane would chose.

 Darcy traded a meaningful look with Erik, who looked as fascinated by the two people conversing animatedly in the middle of the room as she was. She raised a brow, and his response was a shrug and his universal ‘better not question it’ face. Well, she could live with that. Then the discussion turned to serious business (read, science pet project), and Darcy tuned them out after the first three technical terms she didn’t understand. She decided that strategic distance between her and the science-obsessed people was the better part of valor. Darcy went and searched for her iPod some more because _she_ at least had healthy priorities. Seriously, she had just downloaded like _thirty_ new songs on there.

***

Tony was in a good mood on the way back to the SHIELD base after his quite successful meeting with the other scientists on the project, who turned out to be actually intelligent and also weirdly entertaining if the search for one iPod was anything to go by. He was also still very much absorbed in thinking through the formulas and possible way of realizing the project, which was why he completely missed the ominous whirl of clouds streaked with freaky green and gold light brewing in front of him, until he’d driven his SHIELD truck nearly straight into it. In his defense, it was also dark outside, and SHIELD obviously needed to improve their headlight technology – he was sure ~~Stark Industries~~ he could do better.

As it was, he screeched to a halt in the middle of the street, just a few meters away from a raging vortex, which, distraction or not, he could’ve sworn hadn’t been there a minute ago. And because he was very possibly not the most well-adjusted person and had skewed priorities, he took out his prototype cellphone and started filming the natural aberration instead of getting the hell out of a dodge. Well, it was for _science_. Plus it also seemed remarkably relevant to what Jane was studying – which was to say that if that was a natural phenomenon, then his favorite color was mauve.

He truly hadn’t expected a man to crash into his windshield.

A different person might have frozen in shock, but fuck it, Tony was used to high stress situations by now. He was out the car door a second later, the vortex outside vanishing into nothing as suddenly as it had appeared. It didn’t take him long to find the man disguised as a projectile, seeing as he turned out to be fucking _huge_. Faced with someone at least a head taller than Tony, blond, and almost obscenely muscled, Tony didn’t even try to dial down his appreciation – it wasn’t every day one stumbled across (or in this case, was bombarded by) such a fine specimen of a man. Even if said specimen was currently lying on the ground, unconscious.

Or at least Tony hoped the guy was just unconscious – ‘accidental death by windshield’ would be a little bit problematic.

As Tony leaned over him to check his pulse, perfectly blue eyes suddenly opened to stare straight at him. There was a dazed quality to his gaze, but also something deeper, something not unlike grief, even despair. Tony was far too familiar with both, and couldn’t help the sudden, irrational sense of kinship that rose within him.

The eyes slid shut again.

Tony considered for a moment. He _could_ continue on to the SHIELD base as planned, but it didn’t sit well with him to bring the stranger there, especially since he’d appeared under such mysterious circumstances. SHIELD wasn’t exactly covert in its quest to dissect anything and everything only slightly abnormal and people falling out of strange vortices definitely qualified as abnormal. Tony could also bring him back to Jane’s place – she would be more than interested in this event anyway. Decision made, he looked down at the man, back at the truck, and at the man again. He sighed.

“Couldn’t you have hit the back of the truck instead of the windshield?”

*

In his defense, Tony really couldn’t have known that the guy would go all homicidal rage man on them once he really woke up for the first time. Okay, that might’ve been a little exaggeration too, he didn’t precisely _attack_ anyone, just grunt and flail a lot – but he didn’t quite see why Erik made such a big deal of it either. Darcy had turned out to be ridiculously trigger happy (why anyone was stupid enough to let that girl keep a Taser, was a mystery on par with Fury’s missing eye).

At any rate, the man, who’d identified himself as ‘Thor’ (Tony put that down as either a cosplay gone a little too far, really screwed up parents, or the most probable, a white lie/codename), seemed calmer the next time he woke, so they decided to go to the café down the street for some breakfast.

Thor also turned out to be a little strange. His speech pattern would’ve fit better in some Victorian novel, and his mannerism… well, Tony had always thought _he_ was eccentric, but really, he had nothing on this guy. Plus, he allegedly had never heard of Tony Stark and really, that was just plain wrong.

He watched with abject fascination as Thor went from smashing a cup on the ground (completely out of left field too, and hello, social customs?), to honestly contrite and apologetic in a matter of minutes, all the while being really far too adorable for his own good. And Tony’s.

Which was probably why he immediately agreed to drive Thor to the supposed satellite crash site, despite the other’s warning looks and his own better judgment (which he actually possessed, yes, he just usually didn’t listen to it). Well, Tony Stark had always been the king of bad ideas.

Then he found out that SHIELD hadn’t been honest with him _again_ and was so pissed that he just looked on as Thor left him on the hilltop to go and beat the shit out of half the base’s agents, instead of fetching his suitcase armor to help stop him. Curious as to why Thor was so eager to get to the ‘crashed satellite’ in the first place, he took out his personalized StarkPhone.

“JARVIS, hack into this base’s systems, would you?”

It took a full ten minutes (their security was almost impressive), during which Thor had presumably reached his goal – except that the guttural, gut-wrenching scream that echoed all around the air didn’t exactly indicate success. When he replayed the security footage and saw that the object was in fact a _hammer_ – well, Tony had always been smart, and it seemed a little too much like a coincidence to have a man, who claimed to be Thor Odinson, appear out of what looked suspiciously like an Einstein-Rosen-Bridge, at the same time that a hammer, no one could lift, had. And Tony didn’t believe in coincidences anyway, even if the alternative was _almost_ too outlandish to consider.

An idea began to form. Cancelling the video, Tony called Coulson.

*

Tony stepped into the white interrogation room five minutes after Coulson had left, and just in time to hear Thor mutter, his voice quiet and broken, “Goodbye.”

“Goodbye? I just came here to bust your ass out,” Tony said, trying very hard not to feel sympathetic depression at how _lost_ Thor looked. Where there had been a proud, tall man before, there was only a slumped, defeated one left now.

Thor looked up at him, the flash of gratitude as Tony motioned him to the door quickly lost in grief again. For a moment Tony felt unaccountably hurt at the less than enthusiastic greeting, but that was just him being selfish again. Who knew what the guy he was now reasonably sure was actually the Norse god Thor was going through to be stuck on earth without his powers – or at least that’s what Tony figured was going on, since Thor hadn’t yet shown any power more supernatural than beating up a lot of SHIELD’s special agents.

So focused was he on the man next to him, that he didn’t even return Coulson’s caustic comment about drinking on the way out (which was probably fortunate since he’d already had to promise the agent far too much in exchange for getting Thor out of there), and only relaxed his unconscious hold on one of Thor’s big arms once they had arrived at the only bar in town. Tony had figured with typical Stark-logic that since Thor looked like a complete emotional wreck the logical course of action would be to go and get piss-drunk.

“Thank you, Anthony, for what you have done,” Thor finally said after staring at his pint for a few worrying minutes. He looked a little more composed now, even if there was still sadness tugging at the corners of his eyes.

“No problem. You looked like you needed the support, buddy,” Tony returned, taking a sip of his beer, and regretting for a long second having chosen it over whiskey just to make Thor feel more comfortable. Beer really wasn’t an acceptable drink in his books.

“I had it all backwards. I had it all wrong.”

Oh God, this was going to be one of _those_ conversations. Tony had never been good at those. And, making it even more complicated, for some reason he actually cared about giving a good answer. Which was easier said than done, seeing as he didn’t even know what Thor’s situation actually _was_.

“Well,” he said, carefully considering his words and vaguely aware that this was probably going to be one of the more hypocritical things to ever have left his mouth, “is that a bad thing finding out that you don’t have all the answers? You start asking the right questions.”

Thor seemed to consider that, then said slowly, almost painfully, “For the first time in my life I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.”

“Well, it happens to the best of us,” Tony commented, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, and patted Thor on the arm comfortingly. Or maybe he was just inventing more reasons to touch the other man, but it amounted to the same thing.

“It is not as simple as that… my father is dead, and the blame rests solely on my shoulders. I am forever banished to this world.”

Tony stared at him. Jesus, no wonder the guy was messed up, that was enough to make anyone lose his shit. Making a split second decision, he tapped a finger to his arc reactor, the faint _pling_ unsettling even after all this time.

“This, this keeps shrapnel from entering my heart and killing me. I used to be a weapons manufacturer, you know, didn’t really care what happened to my inventions after they left the company grounds either. It took me nearly dying, American soldiers dying in front of my eyes, killed by the very weapons I created, for me to open my eyes to the wrong I was doing.” His voice was still bitter in remembrance. He shrugged. “I changed. Will it ever be enough? I don’t know, probably never will, but that doesn’t keep me from trying.”

Thor seemed to instinctively understand how much it cost him say that, for he laid a warm hand on Tony’s shoulder, with a gentleness that belied his strength, and said, “You are a good man, Anthony. Whatever lies in your past may have shaped you, but it should not hold you in its thrall still now.”

Tony smiled, lop-sided. “Right back at you, big man.”

Thor acknowledged his point with a slight dip of his head (Tony tried very hard not to react to the way the soft golden strands of his hair fell over his face with the motion). “I shall take your advice to heart. Yet… it is still too raw presently.”

Tony nodded glumly into his pint. After his parents, Yinsen, and all the other nameless people killed by his weapons he wasn’t sure if he’d ever exited the ‘too raw’ phase.

“My parents are dead,” he says abruptly, studiously avoiding Thor’s gaze, just in case he would find pity there. “Have been for a long time now. But then again, I never had too great a relationship with either of them, so it’s probably different.”

When he finally looked up, Thor’s blue eyes glinted at him solemnly. “A loss is still a loss, my friend. Let us drink to their memory.”

Tony could definitely get behind that idea. “Race you to the next pint?”

“An unwise decision, to challenge Thor Odinson to a drinking game,” Thor returned, and without further ado, started downing the beer.

Never one to be easily outdone, Tony followed suit.

The next two hours passed in a blur of alcohol and surprisingly good companionship, as he was slowly but surely being drunk under the table. They talked about… well, lots of things really, even if Tony had trouble remembering all of them now, but there was definitely some stuff about science and magic and nine realms. All very fascinating except that his cognitive functions were starting to be severely impaired.

Tony only vaguely recalled Thor slinging him over his shoulder to get home, yet vividly remembered the  feeling of warmth and safety at the comforting contact, wondering how he’d become so attached to Thor so quickly when he usually avoided falling into that trap quite efficiently.

Faced with Thor’s warm hands on his shoulders as he lowered him onto some soft surface, he couldn’t quite manage to feel regretful, even if this whole thing was probably going to blow up in his face spectacularly at some point.

*

If Thor hadn’t immediately – and joyously – greeted the four figures crowding behind the glass, who looked like they’d just come from a fantasy movie, Tony would probably have chalked them down as hangover-induced hallucinations.

Well, at least _he_ hadn’t dropped his coffee mug – though granted, that was more due to a deep-rooted instinct to never ever let go of coffee than because of a lack of surprise.

He barely listened when the troop explained something about Thor’s father, who appeared to actually _not_ be dead, his mind still trying to catch up with his current reality. It was, after all, an entirely different thing to think that Thor probably was a Norse god and to have proof stuck in his face (in the form of people armed to the teeth no less).

Predictably the first thing to come out of his mouth was, “Huh, so warrior chicks are real then?”

Survival instinct still as absent as ever.  Five sets of eyes turned to him, glaring, though he only really paid attention to Thor’s gaze, which happened to be more possessive than angry. Tony would’ve preened if the other presumed Asgardians hadn’t still been skewering him mentally. He decided to keep his next question about white horses to himself for now.

His phone beeped, mercifully interrupting the ominous silence.

Surprisingly it was a message from _Coulson_ asking, ‘This one of yours, Stark?’ The attached picture was all but reassuring. He quickly sent a ‘nope’ back before turning back to the surprise guests.

“Trouble just found us, fellas. Well, unless the huge metal thing shooting beams from its face, which is currently destroying lots of SHIELD cars rather effortlessly, is yours?”

“The destroyer,” Thor and warrior chick spoke at the same time, trading worried glances (and yeah, not really very comforting when the _immortal_ dudes were concerned about something).

As everyone exploded into motion at once to try and evacuate the town in time, Tony high-tailed it to his SHIELD jeep to get his armor. It might not do much good against a magical metal monster thingy, but it made him feel safer nevertheless.

As soon as he’d taken to the air, he searched for Thor, who was, much to Tony’s relief, on the retreat with Jane, Darcy, and Erik. Apparently the fighting had been delegated to the other four – who, now that he was turning his attention to them, didn’t seem to be doing all that well.

He winced as the bearded one Tony’d taken to calling Gimli in his mind was smashed into a car, and went into a dive. Five seconds later he was wiser in a few regards; one, the repulsors, while doing a little bit of damage, were ultimately useless since the destroyer – or whatever they’d called it – apparently fixed itself. Two, it wasn’t only his repulsors, but also warrior chick’s terrifying battle lance which did nothing to stop the destroyer permanently. And last but not least three, Asgardians, or at least this particular bearded one, were _heavy_. His suit barely managed to lift him and the man he was carrying up and out of the way of the destroyer’s next light beam. Though in the pro column, he did actually manage to set Gimli down in time to safe warrior chick from making a very painfully close acquaintance of the next house wall.

Unfortunately his elation didn’t last very long, as the next beam hit him square in the chest and sent him crashing into _another_ wall, thoroughly distracting him from everyone else – which would’ve been the extent of his problems, hadn’t he noticed that the armor plating was _melting_ where it’d been hit.

The arc reactor stuttered in his chest.

Panic crowding in on his mind, he shouted, “JARVIS, disengage armor!”

Various catches released all at once, disassembling armor pieces all around him, and leaving him the room to wriggle out of the rest.

Taking a few deep breaths to calm himself, very glad that he’d designed the arc reactor to withstand as much as scientifically possible at the time, Tony looked up – and immediately froze at the picture that presented itself to him. At this rate he was definitely going to have nightmares of this little trip. Thor was currently adding another event to the long list of ‘shit I had to watch in my life’ by _stepping in front of the fucking destroyer_.

Tony saw them talking, saw the destroyer’s huge arm swing back and smash into Thor, saw him flying through the air like a rag doll, and suddenly Tony was moving, a litany of _no, not him too, not Thor_ playing on endless repeat in his head. He might even have been saying it out loud.

He fell down to his knees next to the downed God, heedless of the pain that flared up in his knees and the gravel beneath him, only looked at Thor’s face, wishing against every common sense that this _wasn’t_ real. He didn’t care that he’d only met Thor a day ago. He didn’t care that Tony Stark and feelings usually didn’t work out well anyway. He just cared about the man who was currently dying in front of him. It made him want to scream and rant and tear things apart.

“It’s over,” Thor mumbled thickly, despite everything a small smile on his lips. “You’re safe.”

“Hey, Thor, you gotta stay with me here,” he said quietly, even knowing that it was useless. “No dying on me, got it?”

Judging by the somber look in his eyes, Thor knew it, too. “I am sorry, Anthony, man of metal. Do not mourn me too harshly.”

Tony had barely choked out his denial when Thor stopped breathing. For the first time in a long time Tony Stark felt like crying.

In his grief he didn’t notice the clouds brewing. He didn’t even hear Jane calling him over the roaring in his ears, more and more frantic, until she was yelling his name right in his ear, dragging him forcibly away from Thor’s unmoving body. At any other time he would’ve been impressed by the surprising strength hidden in her small frame.

Mjolnir passed his head by centimeters, and he couldn’t have cared less if the hammer hadn’t jumped straight into Thor’s _living_ , outstretched hand.

After that the destroyer didn’t stand the slightest chance anymore, as Thor proceeded to completely live up to his name – not that Tony took in much of the fight, despite its rather flashy nature, since he was still far too busy dividing his time between freaking out about dead people coming alive again and the feeling of overwhelming relief crashing into him, staggering in its intensity.

“Jesus _fucking_ Christ!”

Seeing as his brain wasn’t completely online again yet, he could probably be forgiven for the first words out of his mouth when Thor approached them again being, “So is this how you normally look?”

Besides there was a cape. A freaking _cape_. Who wore those anymore anyway? Not to mention that where Thor had been hunky before, now he was like the walking equivalent of sex, all confidence and swagger. Well, he _was_ a god.

“More or less,” Thor answered, with what bordered on very surprising humility, but the playful glint in his eyes gave him away.

Tony looked him up and down slowly, batting his lashes flirtatiously. “Well, I approve. A hundred percent Stark approved, that look. You should patent it.”

Thor threw back his head and laughed, a sound so infectious that Tony couldn’t help but chime in.

***

To say that this had pretty much been the strangest, most impossible, day in Darcy’s entire life, would probably have been a bit of an understatement.

As if meeting Tony Stark hadn’t been enough, there had been a god and a parade of his warrior buddies next, and a metal robot bent on destroying the town and killing them all after. Oh, and not to forget the little detail of the resurrection of a _dead man_ , somehow involving lots of lightning and a mystical hammer.

And now she was standing at the edge of a circular field of runes in the sand, waiting for a bridge between worlds to open. Yeah, strange didn’t even begin to cover it.

On the other hand she had no objection whatsoever to watching Tony Stark and Thor Odinson make out in front of a shimmering curtain of light some more. She even took a picture just in case she ever forgot the overload of gorgeousness that was these two men kissing (doubtful).

“He’s probably a really good kisser too,” she sighed wistfully, as Thor finally vanished into the light.

“You betcha,” Tony returned smugly next to her, looking a little ruffled. “Hey, Jane! Let’s go do some science! How long do you think it’s gonna take to get this show running?”

And all of sudden, everything was back to normal. Well, sort of normal anyway. Which regretfully included her iPod being missing, as she disgruntledly remembered when digging around in her pockets for her music on the way back.

***

Tony was flying through the air in a SHIELD jet with an assassin, a supersoldier, and a bound god, holding on to the last shreds of his patience with an iron will, when he heard thunder starting to rumble all around them.

He smiled. It was about time.

 


End file.
